“If in Palmyra we did not manage to find clear traces of the presence of the ancient gods there, then we were much more fortunate in the north-west of Syria, where, 67 kilometers from the city of Aleppo, literally fifteen kilometers from the border with Turkey in a seemingly unremarkable area is an archaeological site called Ain Dara. The monument is located on a clearly artificial hill of earth and stones, rising above the plain to a height of 30 meters.
In 1955, a sculpture of a lion was accidentally found on the hill, after which archaeological research began here. During excavations in 1976 under the leadership of Ali Abu-Assaf, a temple of rather modest size, only about 30x20 meters, was discovered on the eastern edge of the hill. According to the characteristic bas-reliefs, the temple was immediately attributed to the Hittites. According to the most widespread belief, the temple was dedicated to the goddess of fertility Astarte (aka Ishtar; aka Inanna). However, there is also a version that the temple was dedicated to Baal.
During further excavations, Ali Abu-Assaf came to the conclusion that the temple was created in three stages: the first phase in the period 1300-1000. BC, the second phase in the period 1000-900. BC, and the third phase in the period 900-740. BC e.
In ordinary guidebooks, the attention of tourists to Ain Dara is attracted by the mention of the fact that prints of human feet about a meter long are carved on the floor of the temple. Sometimes they are even called the prints of the feet of God, and the famous dreamer Muldashev considered them even real prints of a certain giant. Meanwhile, even without being an anthropologist, one can easily notice that these "traces" have nothing in common with real foot prints. In addition, for a creature of this height, the steps of the temple would not at all fit either in height or in width, and the temple itself would seem like just a pitiful kennel.
Archaeologists, most likely, will consider this as a relief made here for some "cult purposes". And it seems to me more like just the result of the work of some ancient joker. At least fifteen years before the expedition to Syria, I happened to observe similar "footprints" (albeit of normal human size) next to images of birds and other animals on stones in a little-visited secluded bay near Sudak in Crimea, where I obviously had so much fun on vacation some of the local residents. But there at least the print was drawn much better.
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Much more interesting in Ain Dar is what the archaeologists overlooked or deliberately kept silent.
Firstly, the temple here is built of black basalt blocks (white limestone floor). Meanwhile, the nearest basalt deposit is located 350 kilometers from here!..
A logical question arises: what was the need for the Hittites to move blocks of several tons (and sometimes more than a dozen tons as weigh, for example, statues of lions) over such a distance in an absolutely unremarkable area … There are no large cities, nor any significant ancient settlements. Moreover, in no other place did the Hittites drag such blocks over such distances; everywhere they used local building material.
However, a much more important point is the presence of basalt blocks at the lowest tier, which make up something like the foundation of the walls, traces of machine tools!..
Somewhere it is just a small strip on a flat surface; somewhere at once there are several risks going at an angle to each other, and somewhere perfectly polished (obviously during machine sawing) side edges of blocks, which differ sharply from the blocks located above by the flatness of their lateral surface. We found at least a dozen such traces here.
But the most indicative was one block with such a machining tool mark on the outer lateral surface, the concave shape of which left no doubt that something like a circular saw was used here. A circular saw, on the other hand, requires a very high rotation speed and high strength of the tool in order not only to cut the block, but also to leave behind such a carefully polished surface.
If we focus on the radius of the left rounding, either something like a modern "grinder" was used, which was led in an arc (as is usually the case for an arm bent at the elbow), but then it is not clear who and how provided the necessary pressure on the tool (man not capable of such a thing). Or here we are dealing with a track left by a stationary circular saw, but then it turns out to have a radius of the order of a meter or even more. This is a fairly "running" size of circular saws in modern stone processing plants. However, the mills use strong steel discs with diamond tips, and at this size the discs are no less than a centimeter thick. The thickness of the marks left on the solid basalt blocks in Ain Dara is only a millimeter, maximum one and a half. This requires a very durable tool material,beyond even modern possibilities!..
Needless to say, such traces could never have left the Hittites with their simplest tools and technologies..
The Hittites were clearly only restoring (altering to their taste) from the ruins some much more ancient structure created here by a highly technically advanced civilization, that is, the civilization of the ancient gods. The place, of course, was sacred to the Hittites. Therefore, they made their temple here, decorating it with familiar bas-reliefs. And the Hittites did not drag the material for three and a half hundred kilometers, it has been here since the time of the civilization of the ancient gods, for whom such distances were no longer a problem”